(I wrote this in mid-March. It was part of my Gratitude Journal, when I was conducting 40 Days of Gratitude during Lent for our congregation. Then the Covid-19 lock down hit. I never got around to publishing this because there were too many other pressing matters that needed to be addressed. Now, it offers a startling glimpse of how much the world has changed in a few short months. Going to the gym! Kids, gathering to get on a school bus every morning! Flocking together to pet dogs! No one giving any of it a second thought. And yet, how much hasn’t changed. Love. Care. Compassion. They remain as important as ever. Maybe more so today. I hope you enjoy this look back, and be reminded of the things we need to carry forward)
I have re-discovered podcasts! Nothing passes the time on a treadmill or a stationary bike at the gym like listening to a podcast. News, interviews, poetry readings, panel discussions…whatever you want, there’s a podcast for it. (I’ll share a few of my favorites at the end of this piece)
Today, I picked up this nugget from a podcast called “Femsplainers,” a raucous and rowdy non-politically correct take on modern life. It is a found delight with a sharp edge. I wrote it in my gratitude journal so I wouldn’t forget.
“There is nothing sadder in the world than a kid who is afraid of a dog.”
I think the podcast cohost, Christina Hoff Sommers, who had just lost her golden retriever “Izzy” said this. She’s the reason I listen. I’ve appreciated her books and writing over the years.
Her insight rang a bell. She had articulated something that clarified my mornings, when I am out walking the dogs and the neighborhood kids are clustered on the sidewalk, waiting for the school bus.
Most of the kids run up and there is this big happy scrum of wiggling dogs and squealing kids and laughter when a wet nose finds a dry ear and I try to keep the leashes and the kids and the dogs from getting into a hopeless tangle.
All in all, a wonderful way to start the day!
Invariably though, those long collie noses seek out the kids hanging back. The kids with faces scrunched up in anxiety, or the disdain that often masks anxiety. If you didn’t know, a collie nose is calibrated to sniff out little kids who tense up and turn their backs, because this reaction doesn’t register on a collie.
A collie’s world view says that their entire reason for living is to find little kids, nuzzle them and shower them with affection. Because in collie parlance, they are little kids, ergo they are wonderful. Simple really.
Now, I know there are lots of good reasons that a kid might be leery of a dog. But I note the reasons with a profound sadness that came into focus for me thanks to that podcast, even as I respect the kid’s space and hold the dogs back.
I want to tell these kids, “Life is hard enough without leaving all this unconditional love and happiness on the table.”
But they wouldn’t get what I was talking about anyway. They’re just kids. There are things people have to figure out themselves. Or not, as the case may be.
It’s like when parents take their beautiful baby to sit on Santa’s lap for the first time. The parents are so excited, so sure this is going to be great. They figure they’ll get a chance to relive the magic of Christmas through the eyes of their own kid.
But their own kid takes one look at this hairy stranger in a fuzzy red suit and starts screaming in abject terror. Which is when Santa’s seasonal “elf,” usually snaps the picture.
The new parents are sheepish and contrite, they buy the photo anyway, and they comfort themselves with the idea that eventually, their little bambino will outgrow the idea that Santa Claus is a terrorist.
And, I guess I hope something like that too for the little kids who aren’t sure my dogs aren’t really furry, pointy nosed, assassins.
All we ever know in life is what we’ve experienced. With grace, our knowledge may occasionally exceed our experience. But that’s rare and you really need to be awake and ready for such graceful moments.
The beauty is, like our gratitude practice shows us, the more awake we are, the more moments of grace and gratitude we find!
And maybe that’s why Jesus constantly admonishes us to: “Stay awake!”
Because it’s so easy to allow fear to become the last word. And when it comes to these anxious kids, that seems a reality too sad to contemplate. So, we keep walking by, the dogs and I, knowing that every morning a chance to start again.
But I get it. More than they realize. I was a toddler, about 18 months old, still an only child in my family, when we first got a dog. A church member had collie pups, a hot ticket since Lassie was a hit TV show at the time. He gave the pastor (my father) two of them which my father happily accepted.
Not sure that he ever cleared that with my mother but…he figured the dog was bound to come in handy if I ever fell down a well like the kid on TV every week.
We kept the larger puppy, (again, my father’s idea) which he named “King” (as in King King I assume) and gave the smaller puppy to my aunt. She had him for years. We loved going to visit her and play with him. I don’t think there was a kinder, more gentle dog.
I don’t remember much of when “King” was a puppy. I was too young. But I know from experience that collies grow a lot faster than toddlers. When I first took our collie “Prince” to the vet at 8 weeks, he was just under 10 pounds.
When I took him back the next week for his second round of shots, he was just over 20 pounds.
Whoa, I was not expecting that. Neither were my parents I’d imagine with “King.”
To this day, I have vague memories of “King” towering over me when I would be on the floor playing. It’s the way I envision the apocalypse.
I’d be playing, a shadow would come over me, and the block or whatever I was playing with would be “raptured” up into the dog’s mouth. Naturally, there was lots of weeping and gnashing of teeth while “King” challenged me to a game of chase to get it back, but I was woefully overmatched.
Most of what I remember though, comes from home movies of “King” and I playing in the back yard in the snow. I use the word “playing” loosely though, because the game seemed mostly to involve me getting run over by this joyous dog who was super excited to see snow for the first time.
I would pick myself up, brush the snow out of my eyes, turn around and get knocked on my butt as “King” zoomed back the other way. All of which my father faithfully filmed for posterity.
So, I suppose it is only by grace that I am not afraid of dogs myself, despite having good reason. I mean there is video evidence and everything thanks to my dad.
But, just as there are sins of omission and sins of commission, there are also sins of utter exuberance and that’s really all I could ever fault “King” with. I mean, where would we be in this world without such sins?
But, a few months later, when my sister was born, my mother drew the line. She was not going to deal with an infant, a two year-old, and a dog the size of “Baby Huey” zooming around the house all day.
One day “King” was just gone.
I must have asked about it because I remember my father telling me “King” was happy “living in the country with lots of room to run.”
And that was that. The beginning of the passing parade of beloved-ness—the people, pets and places—that come and go in our lives and shows us who we are and what we could be when we are ready to see it. In the meantime, there’s an ache and an emptiness to remind us.
I saw a meme once on Facebook that has stayed with me. Another gratitude delight. It said:
Be the person your dog thinks you are.
It’s good to be reminded of who that person is, every once in a while, and I am lucky to be reminded of it almost every night.
You see, “FanCee,” our other collie who is “Prince’s” sister once removed, is really too old to do stairs anymore. But every night, when I go up to bed, she waits at the bottom of the steps and barks and whimpers until I come back down, slip the leash over her head, and escort her slowly up the stairs to be with us. It’s all very regal.
In the morning, we do it again in reverse. She kind of rolls/walks down the steps on the verge of disaster; picture a bowling ball with feet. It’s not particularly graceful, but it works. And gracefulness can be over-rated among friends.
At her age, the stairs are too imposing an obstacle to do on her own. But she has decided she can handle it with either Gloria or me walking up beside her, holding the leash.
We don’t really do anything, but the simple connection of that leash combined with the trust of who she believes us to be, is all it takes. The miracle ensues nightly.
It is indeed a profound and humbling honor to experience myself as the person who “FanCee” thinks I am.
To walk beside her up those stairs at night and wait at the bottom of the stairs like an outfielder, ready to catch her as she blunders down again in the morning.
I can’t imagine how much less my life would be without that.
And this is what I want for those kids who hang back at the bus stop. Everyone should know themselves like this at least once.
Without dogs, or those who love us in our life, would I, or any of us, ever get the chance to experience the best of who we are? Of who God made us to be?
Sometimes, it all it takes is a wet nose to find out who that is.
Some Recommended Podcasts:
- Poetry Unbound: https://onbeing.org/series/poetry-unbound/
- Modern Love: https://www.npr.org/podcasts/469516571/modern-love
- Pray As You Go: https://pray-as-you-go.org/home/
- The Science of Happiness : https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-science-of-happiness/id1340505607
- This American Life: https://www.thisamericanlife.org/listen
- Femsplainers: https://femsplainers.com
Charles Oberkehr 